Can a European only party work?

(c) dustydavidson

European elections are complicated at the best of times. In the aftermath of the recent parliamentary scandal to end all scandals, deciding where to place your cross on 4 June poses even greater difficulties. Then the tempting leaflets arrive through the door and things get that bit more complicated.

The BNP appeared to have employed Ryanair’s website designers for their offering, opting for a garish yellow font and lots of exclamation marks (oh, and lots of racism); I counted four English-language mistakes in Scottish Labour’s leaflet and UKIP had a picture of Churchill on theirs (something of a misappropriation of history). As if you weren’t already spoilt for choice, this year a new pan-European party have added themselves to the mix: Libertas.

Founded by Irishman Declan Ganley, the leader of Ireland’s 2008 No to Lisbon campaign, Libertas’s core policies are bringing about accountability and transparency to the EU through reform. Namely, Libertas seek to ensure European Parliament and European Commission expenses are published every year and that laws are only passed by elected officials. Their plans also include saving money and resources: they intend to reduce meetings in Brussels by 50% and to cut Commission spending by €10 billion a year. Most significantly perhaps, they reject the Lisbon Treaty.

There is however already an indication that transparency may not be priority number one. As Le Monde Diplomatique blogger Christopher Bickerton recently reported, the 25-page alternative to the Lisbon Treaty which Libertas propose is being left worryingly secret. UK Libertas leader told a crowd at Oxford last month that the content of it will only be revealed after the election – in the context of the total breakdown in voters’ trust in politicians, there’s an ominous sign if ever there was one, surely.

What is attractive about Libertas is that they have foregone national politics to address the unique structure of the EU and its Europe-wide organisation. The justified concern that the BNP may mop up votes of disenchanted voters in the UK following the expenses scandal is evidence of the potentially corrosive effect of using these elections as a means of sending a signal to domestic politicians. If you are a skeptic about Brussels’ powers, Libertas are an also an attractive alternative to UKIP: they don’t want to pull the UK out of the EU – a logistical, legal, economic, nightmare proposal without precedent, and they don’t put pictures of irrelevant World War Two heroes on their election flyers.

The flip side of Libertas’ pan-European focus is, however, the total absence of any other policies. Whilst you may berate the EU for many things, its influence over immigration, labour rights, fiscal policy, not to mention the prosperity of Europe, cannot be denied. Despite insisting upon their support for the EU in principle, Libertas.eu tells us nothing about how they intend to deal with these issues while they set the reform ball rolling, or indeed after they’ve cleaned things up.

A vote for Libertas on June 4 is a vote on the existential questions of the EU. These certainly need to be dealt with and it’s refreshing to see a credible party which is willing to do so. But the fear with new parties which are created on the back of one policy issue only is the absence of encompassing ideology. Still, looking at those leaflets…